Wolff confident Mercedes can offer Hamilton chance for eighth world title
Toto Wolff believes Mercedes have delivered a car ready to join the fight for the Formula One world championship this season as it hit the track for the first test in Bahrain.
The Mercedes team principal expressed his confidence that after an extremely disappointing season last year, this time the team had built a solid enough platform with their car to offer seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton a chance to compete for his eighth title. Last year Mercedes were well off the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari, their car suffering extensively from porpoising and then later from a separate bouncing issue severely affecting its performance. However, on the first day of testing at the Sakhir circuit Wolff was optimistic that the car was a world away from last year’s recalcitrant ride.
“You need to provide a good car for a driver that has the ambition to win races and championships and we have that,” he said. “We want to win. At this stage last year, we knew we were in trouble because the car was bouncing around and we were not able to drive it correctly. Today, it is very different. The car seems to be balanced in the right way. There is no bouncing which is good news. It is a good starting point.”
The world champion, Max Verstappen, topped the timesheets for Red Bull in the morning session, continuing the form he and the team displayed on a dominant run to both titles last year. In the afternoon Verstappen was on top once more, in front of the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in third and Hamilton in sixth.
With only three days of testing this year before the first round next weekend, the teams focused on putting in